Alexander’s Blog

My clients, and especially my students are always asking me how to disable shutdown event tracker on Windows Server 2003. On a production network, shutdown event tracker can be useful in logging the information in the Event Viewer. However, for some people, such as developers, testers and even in a classroom environment dealing with shutdown event tracker is a nuisance.

There are different ways to disable the event tracker. On a server you can either use on of the built-in policies, such as Default Domain Policy or edit the local group policy. I will describe the procedure to use the local policy to enable or disable the event tracker because it will work on a Domain Controller as well as a client operating system such as Microsoft Vista. Here’s how you can disable the event tracker.

1. Click Start, Run, type MMC and press Enter.

2 . On the File menu choose Add/Remove Snap-in.

3. Add the Group Policy Object Editor snap-in for the “Local Computer.”

4. Click Finish and OK until you get back to the MMC console.

5. Expand Local Computer Policy.

6. Expand Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates and select System.

7. In the right-hand pane double-click Display Shutdown Event Tracker.

8. Configure it to be Disabled and click OK.

9. Close the console without saving it.

NOTE: If you are working on a Domain Controller, it can take up to 5 minutes for the Group Policy to take effect. On a client it can take up to 90 minutes (with a 30 minute offset). Rather than waiting, you can go to the command prompt and manually refresh the Group Policy by typing GPUPDATE /FORCE so that your change takes place immediately. There is no need to reboot.

This tip applies to all Windows Server 2003/2008 Domain Controllers and member servers as well as Windows Vista clients.

If you use Hyper-V or are interested in learning more about Hyper-V you might want to check out this Hyper-V Server 2008 Frequently Asked Questions page. It covers several different areas from system requirements to licensing and a whole lot more.

If you are curious whether your servers are good candidates for Hyper-V virtualization you can check out Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit. Hyper-V Server 2008 can be downloaded from Microsoft here. If you haven’t tried Hyper-V technology, I would encourage you to check it out. I use it every single day and love it.

For those of you who are looking for Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) for 64-bit Windows Server 2003 (WS03) you may have already discovered that GMPC is not supported on 64-bit versions of WS03. The GPMC download page on Microsoft’s Web site states that:

The GPMC does not run on 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows.

This caused some confusion for people who want to run GPMC on Windows Server 2008 (WS08) because the above statement is not exactly true. GPMC will run on 64-bit versions, including WS08 and Windows 7. In fact, GPMC is included with these operating systems. However, the 32-bit version is not compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows. To avoid confusion, the download page should have said:

The GPMC does not run on 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

If you try to install GPMC by downloading it from Microsoft’s Web site on a 64-bit WS08, you will get a prompt that it is not compatible with the version you are using because the downloadable version is a 32-bit version that is not supported on WS08.

By default, GPMC is not installed on WS08 but you can use one of the two following methods to install it.

Installing GPMC from a Command Prompt

Open command prompt as an administrator and run the following command:

ServerManagerCmd -install gpmc

Be patient because it may take some time to install the console. The numbers between the two brackets <> show you the progress. Wait until you see <100/100> before you close the command prompt window. Here’s what you will see,

C:\>ServerManagerCmd -install gpmc
….

Start Installation…
[Installation] Succeeded: [Group Policy Management].
<100/100>

Success: Installation succeeded.

Installing GPMC from the User Interface

1. Start Server Manager.
2. Click Features and then click Add Features in the right-hand pane.
3. In the Add Features Wizard dialog box check Group Policy Management box and then click Install.

Here are some tips from Microsoft TechNet related to the Hyper-V security in Windows Server 2008.

1. Use a Server Core installation for the parent partition.
2. Do not run any applications in the parent partition.
3. Do not give virtual machine administrators permissions on the parent partition.
4. Ensure that virtual machines are fully updated before they are turned on in a production environment.
5. Use a dedicated Network Interface Card (NIC) for management of the virtualization server.
6. Use Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption to help protect VM resources.

Click here to read all the details for each topic.

If you have been using Ntbackup.exe that came with earlier versions of Windows and now you plan to use the new Windows Server Backup that comes with Windows Server 2008 (WS08), there are several things that you need to keep in mind.

1. The backups require NTFS-formatted volumes.
2. You can backup to hard disks (both internal and external) but the disks must be locally attached.
3. You can backup to DVDs and remote shared folders using UNC in Windows Server 2008.
4. If you plan to use scheduled backups then you will need a separate, dedicated disk.
5. If you back up to an external disk then the disk will be dedicated to backups and you won’t be able to see it Windows Explorer. The idea is that you can remove the external disk for off-site storage.
6. Backing up to tape is not supported in Windows Server 2008 but there is support for tape storage drivers.
7. You cannot back up volumes larger than 2043 GB with Windows Server Backup tool.
8. Windows Server 2008 does not support recovering from backups that were created with the old Ntbackup.exe. However, Microsoft is offering a new version of Ntbackup.exe for people who want to recover data from the old backups that were created using Ntbackup.exe. Keep in mind that this “special” version of Ntbackup.exe is only for recovering backups that you created with previous versions of Windows and you cannot use them to create new backups in Windows Server 2008. For more information on this special version of Ntbackup.exe called Windows NT Backup - Restore Utility click here.